Summary

Central idea: The poem contrasts the desperate hope of poor roadside farmers -- who set up a meagre fruit and vegetable stand to attract city motorists -- with the cold indifference of the prosperous city traffic that speeds by. The stand becomes a symbol of rural poverty and the failure of hollow economic promises.

Key devices:

• Irony and oxymoron: The 'polished' city cars lack all human 'polish'; the 'greedy good-doers' and 'beneficent beasts of prey' are benefactors in name only.
• Symbolism: The roadside stand stands for the neglected rural poor; the passing traffic stands for urban wealth and detachment.
• Personification and imagery: 'the sadness that lurks near the open window' gives human feeling to the stand's silent, endless waiting.
• Enjambment: Run-on lines give the poem the natural rhythm of a person thinking and feeling aloud.

Theme: The widening gulf between the rural poor and the urban rich; the hypocrisy of 'welfare' that never truly reaches the needy; the way the speed and self-absorption of modern life refuse to see suffering. …